Yarn in my Pocket

WIP Wednesday

Away from my blog for almost a week?! Unbelievable. You'd be forgiven, indeed, for thinking that I haven't been doing much... But you'd be wrong! I have now completed ten repeats on my big weaving project: 

(Weaving tends to look pretty same-y at this point in the game. You can only ever see the bit that's between the front beam and the current working edge, you see, so you'll have to take my word for it that there's been progress - and be satisfied with a close-up for now! And I have 12 of these plump little puppies sitting around, waiting for wet finishing:

(That's about 500g of yarn, 1855m in total.) I have 6 and a bit batts left to spin, which could theoretically be done in a week - but which probably won't be. I'm waiting for the yarn to be all spun up before I wet finish it, so that they all get basically the same treatment. Myrtle is coming along, too! She now has (or is, I should say) a pair of sleeves!

I am planning to do a provisional cast-on for the body pieces, which always takes me a while (and we've had company, too). In addition, I plan to add in some ribbing for waist shaping, and to move the start of the moss stitch yoke down the body a bit, so I need to figure out what's happening where before I really get going. Probably the real reason I have stalled on the knitting, though, is that I have been working hard on these:

I'm now up to the start of the thumb gusset on the second mitt! That means I've figured out how to make it, and am now checking the pattern by working the second one. With any luck, I'll be able to make this available to all you crochet enthusiasts before too much longer - just in time for autumn chilliness.

If we ever get any, that is.  

WIP Wednesday

I'm glad it's WIP Wednesday around here, because frankly, there's a lot going on at the moment. I haven't finished anything for a while, so the WIPs from my previous posts are still hanging around. And going slowly, I'm afraid: this is the second sleeve of Myrtle, and as you can see, we're not far into it yet:

Spinning has progressed: I've plyed up a couple more skeins of the alpaca blend, and spun a bobbin full of more singles. The problem I've had with this project is that I can't currently get comfortable with long-draw. Comfortable as in physically, ergonomically comfortable: I'm a tall lass, and hold my fibre in the left hand. I'm currently having some fatigue/pain issues with my arms and shoulders, so the chair needs to be the right height, right position for me to spin for any length of time. No photos of these; at this point, one skein of freshly-plied yarn looks pretty much the same as the next.

So! Sundays' swatch is now a full-blown WIP - more on that another time:

And there's another WIP, too:

This is a quick little project; I hope to have it wrapped up by the end of the week...

Swatching...

I am up in beautiful North Yorkshire for the village show (*my* village show!) this weekend, but I thought you'd like a quick peek at something I've been playing with in the meantime...

Finito!

Quite possibly the quickest project I've ever blogged about, and as you can see, I'm quite happy with the results!

In the end, I finished the necklace in the evening after my last post.  Including putting the bits away, it probably took even *less* than half an hour.  But then, I've been wrapping wire ends and fastening jump rings for years.  And years.

A better shot, with focus and details and everything:

See those three larger, pear shaped beads in the middle at the front?  Those are the only three beads like that in the whole necklace.  It is sheer happenstance that they grouped themselves together like that.  I'm pleased they did; they are some of my favourite beads in this piece, and I'm *very* glad they didn't form a cluster sort of off-centre-round-the-side-ish.  That would have *sucked*.

Arty shot...

A little light relief

I found myself lacking energy yesterday afternoon.  Foggy, listless, unwilling to do anything on my current WIP list, or any of the housework scheduled for the day.

Something different was called for.  Something mindless; something that would do nicely whilst watching recorded episodes of Time Team, and snuggling with the dog on the sofa.  Something, preferably, that would give almost instant gratification.

I've owned this kit for a while; I very rarely wear much jewellery, but I love owning it.  I love making it, too.  I got all the beads strung onto the incredibly fine wire during one episode of Time Team, and spent several hours crocheting it into a long, fine strand.  It's rather pretty, though noticeably lacking in drape:

Now all I need to do is finish the ends, and add findings.  Shouldn't be more than about 30 minutes work.  How many months do you think it will take me to get round to it?